Novona, one of Oprah's personal assistants, explains how a typical day looked last year. "The day usually starts at 6 a.m. This day we had three tapings, so back-to-back tapings—second show and a third show. And then pre-production meetings with the teams who have upcoming shows. And then you probably got lunch and dinner, I hope, in that day," she says. "And then you go home and it's been a 14-hour day."

Where did that leave Oprah? "If there was enough time in the week left over from everybody else's appointments with me, then I would take it for myself," Oprah says. "As it turned out, there was never any time left over."